Supervisors favor preserving farmland

STOCKTON - The new direction for development in San Joaquin County over the next 20 years should focus on encouraging growth in existing urban centers while preserving farmland in the county's rural areas.

The San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors will consider a preferred alternative for an updated General Plan at 9 a.m. Tuesday on the sixth floor of the County Administration Building, 44 N. San J...

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General Plan

The San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors will consider a preferred alternative for an updated General Plan at 9 a.m. Tuesday on the sixth floor of the County Administration Building, 44 N. San Joaquin St., in downtown Stockton.

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STOCKTON - The new direction for development in San Joaquin County over the next 20 years should focus on encouraging growth in existing urban centers while preserving farmland in the county's rural areas.

That's the direction approved by the county Board of Supervisors in a unanimous vote Tuesday at a public hearing as the county updates its General Plan, which maps out growth in unincorporated San Joaquin County.

"I think it's heading in a good direction," Chairman Ken Vogel said.

But first, the board made changes to the recommended direction, stripping out language that critics said could open up vast areas of undeveloped land to new construction.

Supervisors said they made the changes to put a consistent direction in place before coming back to a second public hearing next week to look at requests from dozens of property owners who would like to open up their land to future development. They left the option to once again change the broad policy goals of the overall direction, then, too.

The final direction and the approved process will be used by staff and a consultant to put together an environmental study and draft General Plan to replace the existing plan, adopted in 1992.

Direction for the new plan has a stronger focus on development remaining in existing urban areas, but the current plan and the proposal have a strong focus on preserving farmland.

Historically, it's been effective, Community Development Director Kerry Sullivan said, adding there have been only about 300 acres converted to other uses in the past 20 years. But that's not counting farmland lost to annexation by cities and included in the unincorporated area of Mountain House, she said.

The current direction of the update has been formed in a series of meetings going back to 2008. The recommended direction that went before the Board of Supervisors Tuesday was changed and approved by the county Planning Commission in June.

Notably, the commission added modifications to not limit commercial and industrial development to major highways, to not exclude new residential development in rural areas, and to look at appropriate areas to expand urban limits or develop away from existing urban centers.

The recommendation drew criticism from Campaign for Common Ground, a Stockton group that opposes sprawl, saying it opened up the county to "leapfrog" development.

"We are very, very concerned; although there are good ideas, ... there are also some very dangerous ideas," said Eric Parfrey, the group's co-chairman. It's not in line with regional planning, and state law requires local plans for growth to be consistent, he said.